Transition Centre is a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation.
Mission: Building strong local economies and sustainable communities. www.transitioncentre.org

Monday, September 18, 2017

The Road to a Sustainable Future

A sustainable future is a high priority for many.The core value of the sustainability movement
is to live our lives in a manner such that we do not deprive future generations
of an equitable life.That is a moral
issue.Another issue is the destructive
potential of climate change as the result of massive consumption of fossil
fuel.

Can we achieve either of these objectives?Do we have a clear plan for what has to be
done in order to do so?Can we quantify
what must be done?Do we have the
leadership and organizational capacity to mobilize the resources needed to
achieve these objectives?These are the
questions “The Road to a Sustainable Future” addresses.

By the Numbers

Perhaps the most dramatic fact is the steady increase of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere.These
concentrations have been precisely measured and ice core samples have given us
hundreds of thousands of years of data.The science is there.The
evidence of human causation is clear, and yet there are many deniers.

The steady rise in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere
since the beginning of the industrial revolution is merely an indication of the
progress of economic development; first in Europe and North America and
increasingly the rest of the world.Economic progress is grounded upon the production of energy and that
means burning fossil fuels.

The rise in greenhouse gases and the associate increase in
global warming are represented as a “J,” or “hockey stick” curve.Another, and congruent (closely correlated),
J-curve is the development of technology as defined by the number of major
scientific discoveries and the number of patents issued.The third, also congruent, J-curve, is the
rise in human population.In short,
these trends represent a compounded, geometric rate of growth.

Another fact is that most of the resources we use are
non-renewable, that is, there is a fixed quantity of them; for example, energy
resources like coal, oil and gas (and we could include uranium).As we use these resources, remaining reserves
become increasingly difficult to exploit and cost per unit of energy inevitably
rises.At some point, if we haven’t
already, we will deplete half the known reserves.At some point the cost of production will
become prohibitive.

The beginning of the industrial revolution roughly
coincides with the perfection of the steam engine by James Watt and a new model
of capitalistic economics established by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.Let’s
call it the 1770s.By the 1870s,
industry had become the dominate economic model and progress has continued at
an ever-accelerating pace since.

The idea of progress is a relatively new one.It became popular just about the time the
industrial revolution took hold.Before
the modern age there was little sense of a thing called “history;” people
expected to live out their lives much as their ancestors had.Since the ideas of history and progress
became popular, a lot of thoughtful people have been trying to predict the
future.Nobody has ever got it
right.A lot of science fiction visions
didn’t happen.What did happen was
pretty much unexpected, like the personal computer and internet.

Humans have become a
major force on this planet. The change
we cause has a profound effect of the life of the planet as a whole and upon
the biosphere that sustains all life. We
are getting much better at measuring change.
Many intelligent, well informed, people are concerned about the effect
of continued change as we have experienced it during the last few decades. We will either get our game together for a
Start Trek future, or something else. It’s
going to take a lot of hard thinking and a lot of hard work to take control of
the economy and the effects it is creating.

If we had some type of dashboard, a set of gauges to
measure the “speed, temperature and pressure” elements of the economy, there
would be a panel of them that would be troubling.We might add another gauge for the economy.Its metric would be world GNP.The ideal of progress is continued
growth.The reality is the adverse effect
this continued develop might have on society and the environment.

Measures of Sustainability

The classical model of sustainability has three “pillars:”
Economy, society and environment.The
economy is the driver, the independent variable.There is, however, a feedback loop and that
is the effect the economy has on society and the environment and also the
impact of environmental degradation and social instability on the economy.Overall, most people think the effect on
society has been positive:growth and the
good life are coeval.A declining world economy
would, in fact, have a weighty impact on billions of people.

When the UN defined sustainable development, its objective
was, in fact, global economic growth.The goal was to eliminate poverty and hunger, to provide health and
education benefits, to reduce the causes of conflict, for all of humankind.But they asked how we could sustain it.

The UN is a governmental entity.The foundation of government – global,
national or local – is human health and safety, not the environment per
se.Concern about the environment, is
preservation of health and safety and particularly for future generations.But there is a Catch 22 involved.However you cut the deck, development demands
more resources.Ideally, we learn to
make better use of what we have, to employ renewable resource.Bottom line, however, growth comes
first.You can blame corporations and
governments all you want but ordinary people, your friends and neighbors, and
those in the developing world, want a better life.

The Thin Green Wedge

We live in a world that is increasingly “democratic:” the
opinion of the majority determines the course of events.True, some countries are marginally
democratic at best, but it is hard to find any country in which the majority of
its citizens want to stop economic growth.The Paris Agreement did evoke a consensus about the importance of
curbing climate change.It did not reach
agreement about how that would be achieved.The US, which consumes a quarter of the world’s energy and the lion’s
share of other resources (either directly or indirectly) is now under an
administration that is not in agreement with either climate claims or efforts
to curb energy and other resource consumption.Yes, there is increasing use of renewable energy but, for the most part
as a supplement, not a replacement, for fossil fuel consumption.The prospect for holding global
warming to 20C, which is the theoretical threshold to runaway
climate effects, is vanishingly small.

Some people have an urgent sense that we need to take
control of our world; a lot more simply want more of the good things industrial
life offers.In the US, around one in
eight people have some lifestyle commitment to sustainability, about one
percent are highly committed.However, nearly
one in three do not believe in climate change and half again as many don’t
think it is caused by humans.This is about
half of us.Another third of the
population is concerned about climate change but more interested in maintaining
the good life.In short, about half (the
yellow wedge) are more or less on the fence.

REconomy

The weak link in the climate – economy – environment
triptych, is the economy.The economy is
the driver.It has immense inertia.Only a radical few (in the hard-green one
percent) want to end economic growth.

Sustainability focuses mostly either on society or on the
environment rather than on the economy.A green lifestyle (the thin green wedge)
involves using fewer resources, installing solar panels, buying efficient
appliances and cars, recycling and other things one can do for the good of the
planet.Activist seek to influence
political leaders to adopt and support environmental friendly policies; and
pressure major corporations to become responsible.

The economy is market driven:it is the result of what people want to
buy.It is the result of producing
products and services that are better and/or less costly than those of competitors.Governments do regulate because that is their
job.They make a lot of
compromises.Few have anything like a
comprehensive plan.Corporations, and
governments and nonprofits, do seek cost savings found in reduction in energy
and other resource uses – just sound management.

The production and distribution of goods and services is
the foundation of society.Business
entrepreneurship is one of the most effective methods we know for organizing
human capability.But business is about
making profits.It has a short-term
outlook.When the economy begins to
deplete resources and spoil the environment, business becomes a problem.

Do we have a good idea of what a sustainable economy would
look like; an economy that lives within the energy and resource budget of the
planet?Will achieving that involve
government regulation to control the economy to the degree required?If so, where does the money come from to
create new industries, new markets, new technologies, and develop the new
workforce?Does government come up with
the trillions of dollars (equivalent) needed for the transformation?Or do we have to go to the market?

Bottom line (that lovely business term) is that economic
transformation must pay for itself and that means it must take command of the
marketplace.We do, in fact, have good
ideas how to proceed along these lines.There are excellent models of green business and social
entrepreneurship.We now have a legal
framework for the Benefit Corporation, a business model that mandates social
and environmental benefit.Technological
innovation is driving new markets.The
cost of renewable energy is expected soon to be lower than that produced by fossil
fuels.The cost of energy is a
cornerstone of corporate sustainability.Rising cost of energy and other resources drive business innovation.Major corporations are developing risk
management models around the scarcity of water, land, energy and other mineral
resources.As conditions change, more
major corporations are finding sustainability just makes good business sense. The economy constantly transforms itself.We need only to accelerate and direct the forces
already at work.But first we need to
decide what to do.That takes
leadership.

Deep Leadership

The key element in transformation is leadership.Do we need a new style of leadership?I believe the answer is clearly yes.

Each era of human history has had its own form of
leadership.From tribal to aristocratic
to corporate, there has been a steady progression of knowledge and skills in
the management of human affairs.This is
in no small part due to the increasing complexity of life especially during the
industrial era.The industrial era
itself has gone through stages, and done so quickly.Scientific management, for example, dominated
the corporate landscape a century ago.Our economy has transformed from manufacturing to services, from blue
collar to white, from manual skill to information and knowledge.We have now gone digital and virtual.

What type of leadership do we need?The past century relied heavily on the
specialized expert.The demand for such
will not diminish in the future but it is increasingly clear that a more
generalized, comprehensive, style is required.We need people who know a lot of things but most importantly, who can
see patterns of activity and make the connections.

As Einstein so famously said, we cannot solve our problems
with the same thinking that created them.Great scientist and inventors have steadily pushed human progress.Since Einstein’s breakthroughs, our knowledge
of the universe and our understanding of the human mind have developed
immensely.We now need a leadership
style that can bring order to progress and achieve a secure and stable
future.This will take a new kind of
thinking.

The vast complexity of World War II produced not only the
computer but a new thinking style, general systems theory.The two are, in fact, closely
interrelated.The general systems model
has, however, been slow to evolve in a specialist-driven academic and work
environment.There have been a number of
innovators in this thinking style.One
of them, Bucky Fuller, call this new type “comprehensivists,” or generalists if
you prefer.Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
are examples of this emerging style.It
was a Microsoft principle that a good programmer can hold the entire structure
of the application in his or her mind.Jobs approached his work from a design perspective; Apple devices are built
to embed themselves into the behavior of the user.

The models are plentiful but the development of this style
of leadership is, at best, hit-or-miss.Curiously, many of these innovators were college dropouts.I’m not sure where you can find a degree
program in comprehensivists leadership.There are, however, some very good books, training programs and some
consultants who do address this issue.Transition Centre is pursuing a more systematic educational program for
what it calls Deep Leadership.

The Deep Leader, in short, is a generalist, or
comprehensivists lifelong learner, thinks critically, thinks in an ecological
(social as well as natural) framework, has a big-picture view of the world, is an
avid networker, an excellent communicator, possess a wide variety of mental and
manual skills, and is a talented organizer.They are good at connecting the dots.

Community

The third element of our model is community.As the organizational style has evolved from
authority and hierarchy to flat and fluid, consensus has largely replaced rules
in the formation of social groups.Social capital in the US, however, has become increasingly
problematic.The urban-industrial
economy has eroded traditional forms of community and the digital media has
created an entirely new dynamic of association.

Margaret Mead’s theory of small groups changing the world
is not a romantic myth.It starts with
someone who has an idea and the first few people (it takes about four of them) who
support that idea. If they work hard
enough, an organization forms around them.

New groups do not appear out of a vacuum; they arise out
of a conversation.In short, there is
some type of community, however tenuous, involved.This brings us to the question of what does
it take to make a community?The short
answer is a common set of values, a shared set of ideas and beliefs, a common
vision of the world, and a sense of mutuality.

The sustainability movement has been said to be the
largest in the history of the planet.Does it represent a community?Unfortunately,
no.It is diverse, fragmented,
incoherent, poorly focused, unorganized; it lacks social cohesion.The one thing its adherents have in common is
that we need to do something to make the future livable; but too little real
organization.

Green entrepreneur Paul Hawkins once created a web site to
list sustainable organizations around the world.There were at least 100,000 of them.In my community, a region of some 160,000
people, we have identified nearly 600 local organizations, groups, programs and
a few outstanding individuals, who are involved in sustainability.Few of these, however, know much about the
rest of the list.

A community is an ecosystem, it is a spontaneous
organization, but we have little comprehension of how it works.An ecosystem is a natural economic model; it
is the way nature works.We need to
better understand this and we need to developing better tools for building functional
networks that weave our community into a self-aware, coherent, whole.

One of our major problems is how little people know about
the sustainability movement, at home or around the world, and how little they
know of the long and rich tradition of the movement.A community must have a common understanding
of its traditions. Attached is a partial
list of names, of people and organizations, that have defined this movement.See how many you can identify.And then there is a sustainability quiz to
check your perception.

Sustainability is becoming a tradition, a culture if you
will, in a small, but increasing, number of communities.It takes about a generation for a culture to
form, now about the time since the founding of the sustainability movement in
the 1970s and 1980s.A considerable
literature is forming about the sustainability movement and this emerging
culture.It seems an appropriate time to
systemize this knowledge and create a model to promotes its progress, to form a
common vision, gain a stronger sense of community, and to mobilize more
effective, more focused, better resourced, initiatives.

It’s going to take a plan make this happen.It’s going to take leadership.And it’s going to take organization to
accelerate the transformative change needed to reshape the future.This is the mission that Transition Centre
and allied groups have undertaken.

Sustainability
Quotient

How many names do you
recognize on this list?

How many can you give a 25-word
description of?

What is missing?

John Muir

John Burroughs

Teddy Roosevelt

John James Audubon

Charles Darwin

Wendell Berry

Wes Jackson

Henry David
Thoreau

Ralph Waldo
Emerson

Ralph Borsodi

Mildred Loomis

School of Living

Scott and Helen
Nearing

Bill McKibben

David Orr

Vandana Shiva

James Hansen

Gaia hypothesis

Rachel Carson

Al Gore

Rob Hopkins

Permaculture

Gifford Pinchot

Sierra Club

Aldo Leopold

Arne Naess

Thomas Berry

Theodore Roszak

Lewis Mumford

Georges I.
Gurdjieff

G. J. Bennett

Peter Senge

Bucky Fuller

Alfred Korzybski

General Systems
Theory

Fritjof Capra

George Leonard

David Holmgren

Bill Mollison

John Ruskin

Earth Day

Hazel Henderson

E. F. Schumacher

Paul Hawken

James Lovelock

Carl Sagan

Ken Wilber

Marilyn Ferguson

Carol Sanford

Edward Abby

Oswald Spengler

Arnold Toynbee

P. A. Sorokin

Patrick Geddes

E. O. Wilson

Systems Ecology

Local

Make your own list
of key local organizations, groups and activities.

Sustainability QUIZ

Some answers are factual. The remainder should be your own thoughts.

1.What is the current probability of achieving a 20C
limit on global warming?

2.What do you think life will be like in your
community in ten years?

3.TRUE OR FALSE:
The most critical resources today are land, water, energy, other mineral
resources and grown products.

4.Which is the most critical resource?

5.In the sustainability model (environment,
economy and society) where is the weakest link?

6.What is the projected population of the Earth in
2050?

7.What is the long-term carrying capacity of the
Earth?

8.What is REconomy?

9.What is the most effective type of organization
for transformative change?

10.What is the most effective style of leadership
for transformative change?

11.What is the most effective level to bring about
change: Global, National or Local?